Thursday, October 29, 2009

Live At KSC: Ares I-X Parachutes Fail During Flight

NASA's Ares I-X rocket sustained significant damage Wednesday when it first-stage parachute recovery system failed to operate as intended and the vehicle slammed into the Atlantic Ocean about 120 miles due east of Kennedy Space Center.

The 327-foot-tall rocket blasted off from launch pad 39B at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, and its two-minute test flight appeared to be successful. But one of three main parachutes in the first-stage recovery system failed to deploy properly.

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NASA shuttle program managers, meanwhile, today reviewed a shuttle parachute failure that caused damage to one of two solid rocket boosters that helped propel Discovery on an International Space Station assembly mission that launched in late August. Engineers deemed the failure an isolated incident.

The Ares I-X parachute recovery system is similar but much larger version of the shuttle parachutes. NASA mission managers nonetheless decided today to press ahead with the planned Nov. 16 launch of shuttle Atlantis on an International Space Station outfitting mission.

The Ares I-X first stage was recovered by the crew of the shuttle solid rocket booster retrieval ship Freedom Star.

"Only one parachute deployed properly. One parachute failed and wrapped around the third partially deployed parachute," according to an e-mail status report obtained by Florida Today.

Photos sent back by the recovery crew also show what appears to be a large crack in the casing of the first stage. The fracture is located on the side of one of the uppermost segment of the Ares I-X first stage, an area known as the Forward Segment.

Additionally, the crew sent back photos that show a fractured actuator bracket on the side of the rocket.

The Freedom Star is expected to come through the jetty at Port Canaveral sometime between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. tonight. With the bashed up booster in tow, the retrieval ship will stay overnight at the Trident submarine wharf and then arrive at the Port Canaveral locks by 6 a.m.

The first-stage of the rocket then will arrive around 8 a.m. at Hangar AF at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, where it will be inspected.

The $445 million Ares I-X test flight was designed to test the controllability of the slender rocket as well as the system that separates its first and second stage and the first stage parachute recovery system. Amonfg key objectives of any test flight is to root out potential problems so they can be fixed before the design of a launch system is completed and manufacturing begins.

NASA's Ares I-X Press Kit includes the following information on the parachute recovery system:

Although similar to the space shuttle’s parachute system, the Ares recovery system is designed to be much larger and stronger because of the heavier weight of the first-stage rocket.

The Ares chutes cover more than two acres and are 325 feet long. Kevlar makes these new parachutes stronger and lighter than their nylon predecessors. Although the chute is bigger, it still fits into the same-sized container and weighs less. The canopy consists of strong strips of material sewn together in a lattice-work design, which looks similar to a pie-crust top. This design allows the wind to flow through the canopy, stabilizing the entire stack.

Both the Ares and space shuttle parachutes are processed in Kennedy Space Center’s Parachute Refurbishment Facility, a building that covers 18,000 square feet and is bigger than two side-by-side basketball courts.

After one of NASA's retrieval ships, Liberty Star or Freedom Star, recover the first stage booster parachutes from the water, they will be transported back to the parachute facility.

The chutes will be stretched out on an 11,000 square-foot outdoor deck where the suspension lines can be untangled. Next, the chutes will be hung by hand onto L-shaped hooks attached to a monorail system that carries them into a monster-sized washer.

After hours of sloshing in a 25,000-gallon tank to cleanse the fabric of debris and minerals, the monorail will move the chutes into a mammoth dryer. When the drying cycle is complete, the monorail will snake its way through the building for the next processing step -- repair and re-pack.

84 Comments:

Anonymous said...

The funny thing is I was talking to someone prior to the launch adn guess where she worked? The parachute shop...These were the largest parachutes ever produced in the world...guess they needed a little more oomph.

Retrieving SRBs is an enormous waste of time, effort and money. It makes congress think we're saving money and being efficient. Employing thousands of people, maintaining two ships and putting divers at risk to retrieve steel cylinders. Dumb.

What about the staging... that definetely didn't go as planned; the upper stage started to tumble too.. imagine that happening with a crewed Orion capsule on top. Hopefully they figure out what went wrong there.

Titan IV and Ariane 5 boosters are/were much smaller than shuttle's. That much aside, it costs more to re-use the SRB's than it does to manufacture them. They're re-used only for teh sake of being able to say they're reusable. It's unwise in terms of economics and also weight. The recovery system is pretty massive.

Yes the upper stage was designed to tumble on this flight,for the simle reason that it wasn't under power. If it had been the finished manned Ares 1 it would be under power milliseconds after separation from the first stage.

And the flight would be bieng controlled from the orion crew module at the top .

Stephen, Frank West is correct in saying there was a problem with stage separation. Yes, the FIRST stage is supposed to tumble after sep. But the SECOND stage is supposed to continue flying straight into orbit. On this test flight, the second stage (the Upper Stage Simulator, or USS) was an unpowered dummy, so it, too, was expected to fall into the ocean. However, the stage separation event should not have caused the USS to yaw at separation. If that had been a "real" flight intended to reach orbit, it would have been a failure.

It's still under development, and you simply can't mount deep space exploration with shuttles(much as have loved them). Ares1 and Ares V will prove to be a good set of hardware, when the testing is done and the final design is manufactured.

I cant believe some of the comments being made. This was a test flight. Things dont always go perfect. Thats the purpose of this flight. They did get it right.It was a super launch.For the people that dont believe in the future, It takes failures to come up with the solutions. Not everyone is perfect, thats why we perform test.I want to say congradulations to all the folks that made this happen.I believe that most of the people that understand the space program and the effects it has on this nation are going to be positive of the space program. There are those that are always going to be negative about everything.Thats mostly because they dont understand what success is.

If there were no logistics in place for SRB retrieval, post-launch investigations, in the case of a system failure, would be nearly impossible and much more expensive than they are now. You are, after all, commenting on the information and pictures gained through the process.

Progress takes risk and folks (And Companies) willing to put it on the edge, regardless of the programs future, the team should be proud. That is the American way, we do things, the rest of the world talks about them...

For the "Anonymous" for "I can't believe some of the comments being made". You're very correct! It looks like you might of been part of the CCAFS and KSC teams. Remember the old Complexes. Experiments and safe human launches.

*This just goes to show the importance of flying actual test hardware. In testing, failure is an option, and you actually learn more from your failures than from your successes.

*It's doubtful this was the fault of the parachute shop. More likely, there were unexpected dynamics that were not accounted for in the models used to for the design. The whole point of the test was to verify those models. The test identified flaws, so now the engineers know where to focus on improvement.

*SRB retrieval is basically equal with building new ones from a cost perspective. The advantage of retrieval is that it allows post-flight engineering analysis to be performed, so the design can be improved, and safety trends can be identified. SpaceX is actually considering retrieval to determine if there is a cost benefit to them. Though, keep in mind, different rocket = different requirements, costs, etc.

*This flight did not "prove" that Ares I is a bad design. It actually showed that it is possible to successfully and safely control a large single in-line SRM-based launch vehicle.

*People are getting all caught up on the stage separation issues. However, there are a lot of differences between Ares I and Ares I-X during this flight phase. The separation plane between the two stages is in two completely different spots on Ares I vs. Ares I-X. Ares I will be at a higher altitude with less atmospheric density when it stages. The real Ares I will have a different outer mold line. The real Ares I first stage will be 5 empty propellant segments vs. Ares I-X's 4 empty segments + one heavy mass simulator at the top. The real Ares I will have ullage motors and active RCS at separation.

*Overall, this was a great flight, and well worth the money, which was all spent right here in the good 'ol U.S. of A.

40 years at the top of the space game and some folks are still calling the people at the cape "knuckleheads". The Soviets were our only competition, and they beat us at a few things. Like long duration flights and killing pilots.It's fun to talk about extending shuttle flights, but it can't happen. The system is reusable, but there are a lot of parts that aren't. The contracts for the production of those parts were canceled when Bush ended the program. To renegotiate those would be prohibitively expensive. May wind up costing more than the Ares.This is caused by a lack of foresight, an attitude that the shuttle was "reusable" so it not need replacing. That's nonsense. You start looking for a new car long before it's as old as the shuttle fleet. You also want to upgrade. That lack of foresight is not in Florida. It was in Washington. Back off of the men and women at the cape. There's a lot that goes into harnessing that kind of power and enabling human passengers to survive the process. If you don't understand it read up on it. An uninformed opinion is worse than worthless. It's dangerous. So is the idea of subcontracting human spaceflight. Do you really want to hand over our astronauts to the lowest bidder? For that matter, do you comprehend how much tech that we take for granted that came from the space program?Congratulations to the employees of NASA on a job well done.

Everyone has to remember the earlier days, to where we were the space dogs, and the researchers, and where they sent up the best and the badest, but even then it wasn't even enough. So, the same is the vehicle. They've crashed in a number of years, they've evolved, and they have become what we have now as the Ares and the Shuttle...So be it. Expect the bad with the good. To do otherwise is ignorant to the risk.

To the Anonymous person that said "Can't these KNUCKLEHEADS at Kennedy do anything right ! Shut the WHOLE thing DOWN and let private industry take over !!!":

Private industry has had their fair share of failures. Just look at SpaceX. It took them three tries before they finally got their privately funded Falcon I to orbit. Trial and error goes with the territory in this business.

What if STS-1 had been like this? Have all of you folks forgotten how we managed to stretch the bounds of what could be done with the Shuttle? A $400M "test" of the separation for the not-true-fidelity first stage??? We would have spent a couple billion plus if we had taken "baby steps" with Shuttle: no, we did our homework, reached beyond the possible, and came up with a still unsurpassed engineering achievement that even today can evoke dreams in people all over the world beyond comprehension. NASA needs to expect more, deliver more, and BE more. This 'test flight' was as simple as they come, and still had very real and significant problems. No people. This is NOT the right stuff!!!

am I missing something here - we are celebrating the launching of a single SRB (not even the real 5 segment version) and a 3 minute parabolic trajectory? Seriously folks - this is like a 1956 event or something. We get TWO of these events at every shuttle launch; and please don't brag about verifying some ground integration or separation. In today's world, spending $400M to verify step 1 of a thousand step process is rather ridiculous. This is how we replace the shuttle , the most complex vehicle (dare I say achievement) mankind has yet created? I would have to say that lead in space is gone already...

The upper stage was unpowered and aerodynamic forces did what was intended causing rotation of that stage and the other poster is correct it won't happen on a all up test or Ares 1 because of the addition of Roll Control System(RCS)motors and the J-2X engine and Ullage motors that will force fuel to the bottom of the liquid propellant tanks allowing instant ignition of the J-2X.

By the time NASA launches a crew of Ares it will be a pretty good spacecraft for LEO

Remember: Retrieval of the SRB's gives NASA the opportunity to perform a post flight evaluation. You must understand the value of improvement. There is NOTHING on the Market (Private or Government funded), that can match the Safety and Reliability of the SRB. If you think about it, the SRB has never failed. Both Shuttle tragedies were directly due to the extremely frail orbiter and its location on the vehicle. During the Challenger flight the SRB’s still flew even after the explosion of the External Tank, the SRB’s were trying to get back on course until range sent the self-destruct command, which work perfectly even after a jolt (vibration) like the vehicle exploding. If the SRB joint would have leaked in a different area of the joint the outcome of that event would have been different. They retrieved those boosters and learned from the design flaws. You have heard of the word “Progress”, right? The next time you are in the hospital for surgery, tell the doctor "that you don't want any post surgery care and don't review and of my charts". So when you go home and Die, you can ask yourself this simple question,” do you think the next brave soul is going to willingly follow in your footsteps”? Americans, Wake up. Support this amazing and extremely valuable Space Program that we as a national own. Keep our nations space program here in the USA. Fund America, Not Russia. Our space program should brand our vehicles “Made in the USA”, because it parts and there production are more American them our Cars and Trucks that roll off the line in Detroit. Thank you to all of the Men and Woman that make our space program possible. The sight of that beautiful rocket lifting off and soaring thru the air was simply amazing, and thank you for filling my 6 years old sons eyes with the visions of History and promise. You are amazing people, Keep up the good work. Period.

You can be sure that with most other space programs you would not be seeing almost real time reports of parachute problems ,dents ,and stages (unpowered so how can it get away,hello!) touching after staging.when you start a total new program there will be things that need attention .One filght and the "sound bite " people are complaining Tthe Shuttle is going ,weather 2 years or 4 ,that really old tech needs to be replaced ,its done its job .

And one more thing to the uninformed, narrowminded Anonymous person that said "Can't these KNUCKLEHEADS at Kennedy do anything right ! Shut the WHOLE thing DOWN and let private industry take over !!!"...

Those private companies are being partially funded BY NASA thruthe COTS program.

Yes! Thats YOUR tax dollars going to a PRIVATE company to gettheir business going which in my opinion is BULLDINKY!

If they think they can compete then they shoud be doing it on THEIR dime not ours.

To the person who commented on STS-1: Perhaps you should read up on what occurred during that flight. Not the PR fluff, but the real serious technical problems that occurred. We were lucky to get the crew back alive. Our society, in general (not just NASA, but i general) is far to risk adverse to do something like that these days. It was actually ridiculous/reckless that STS-1 even occurred with a crew on board. Had we lost Young and Crippen on that first flight while the program was still young and vulnerable to cancellation, we might not have a Shuttle program today. Even the Russians had the sense to send Buran up for its maiden flight unmanned.

Graham, I post anonymous because I hate how the Flame Trench uses a different log on than the rest of the Florida Today website. Why should I have to log on twice? I also hate their different posting policy. If I can post anywhere else on the Florida Today website without having to wait for comment approval, why should I have to wait here?

QUOTE: "You could have saved a lot of people with health concerns with that kind of money.... you would have thought that kind of money could have bought perfection."

Please realize that the space industry, NASA to be exact, has saved countless number of lives with spin off technologies that come out of research and development. The heart pump is the first thing that comes to my mind as an example but there are many more. Here, do some reading: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

If you give all your money to the poor, you have nothing left to improve life.

QUOTE: "You could have saved a lot of people with health concerns with that kind of money.... you would have thought that kind of money could have bought perfection."

Please realize that the space industry, NASA to be exact, has saved countless number of lives with spin off technologies that come out of research and development. The heart pump is the first thing that comes to my mind as an example but there are many more. Here, do some reading: http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/

If you give all your money to the poor, you have nothing left to improve life.

Why is it that I am offered the opportunity to donate money to some stupid presidential campaign fund when I file my Federal Income Taxes, but do not get the same offer to donate to NASA? I think every citizen should be allowed to donate money to any Federal Agency of their choosing, on top of standard budget allocations.

"That is the American way, we do things, the rest of the world talks about them..."

That USED to be the American way. To paraphrase JFK, we used to do things because they were difficult, a challenge, but from many of the comments I've read here and elsewhere, a lot of Americans feel exactly the opposite now. Fortunately, NASA still believes in taking on challenges and overcoming them, and continuing the human need to explore and learn.

Never been a fan of Ares 1, but this apparent success gives its proponents ammunition to lobby Obama with. In all honesty the mistake was ex-NASA chief Sean O'Keefe's, who should have man-rated either Atlas 5 or Delta 4 way back in 2003! Instead, he left it to his successor, Michael Griffin, who was only interested in anything ATK proposed. Now here we are with Ares!! So if Obama dumps it, then all that money and time will have been wasted and Orion will still not be flying anytime soon. And guess what? Even Charles Bolden hinted about an Ares-variant booster to launch Orion out of the Augustine options. Incredible considering that back in the 1970s, Wehrner von Braun warned against using solid-fuelled rockets to launch humans. Looks like a Nixon-esque compromise, which gave us today's Space Shuttle, is on the cards

We know that shuttles work, work well, and are effective.. If they need to be replaced, why not just build new ones? We've got all the plans for it already, the new structures could be built out of carbon fiber instead of steel/aluminum, and we'd have a stronger, lighter shuttle, that could easily be modified... Add 10% to every dimension, and you end up with a bigger cargo bay in a ship that performs the same and weighs less because its built with newer materials... Not only that, but people already KNOW how to fly the shuttle, and KNOW how to maintain/repair it. Oh, did I mention that our existing infrastructure also supports shuttle launches/recovery as well?

The people who insult and disparage the minds working on our space program are the people who flunked math in high school. They're just jealous, so they think the only way they can get attention is to baselessly insult those far smarter than them.

When are we as Americans going to start hold the people spending our money accountable for spending it. 445 MILLION plus to test a rocket that was proven years ago. Why do we NEED to go into space, specifically to the moon (AGAIN). Are we moving there? Come one Americans, Citizens, Hard Working Men and Women it's time for use to say enough. Does anyone care anymore that we are in a ecomonic crisis, having a record number of people loosing their homes, going hungry that we need to spend 445 MILLION to test a rocket. 445 MILLION dollars devided by the total number of Americans, humm! do you think that might help those that really need? Space is it really a need or a luxary right now? Needs are thing that Americans have to have to survive. Lets stop this insane luxary!!!!

In response to 12:11 PM Anonymous: There were plans for Constellation prior to Griffin. Admiral Steidle had a great plan to do a fly-off competition between contractors, similar to Advanced Tactical Fighter, Joint Strike Fighter, and Littoral Combat Ship. It was a great plan. Mike Griffin tossed it in the garbage as soon as he took office, having designed the current Program of Record before he was even nominated for the position. Also, work had already been done to man rate Delta IV and Atlas V through the Orbital Space Plane program, which was the predecessor to the Crew Exploration Vehicle and the rest of Constellation.

I may be wrong, but solids have a much better track record than liquid...Also every astronaut I have talked to loves solid. The idea of no moving parts to go wrong somehwat makes them happy when they are strapped in.

We could explain ever detail of this mission, why it's good for the country, and the need for future space exploration and we'll still get those who want to spend it on health care and all the other social programs you can think of.I really wonder what it's like to be so depressed and anxious over every little thing in this life that you really have no control over? I also wonder what it takes for a person to have no vision or imagination of loftier ideas? I also am amazed that those who advocate detouring funding from space toward those social programs that already receive billions of tax dollars and multiple millions in donations from good hearted people when they probably do not even consider giving their fair share?The space program has given much back for the investment made, maybe it's time to stop being so self absorbed, so "Holier than thou" and step up to the plate and do privately what you advocate publicly!!

To change the subject a little. Has anyone ever given any thought to inducing climate change on Venus, to make it inhabitable? Something like bugs that eat sulphuric acid and burp oxygen, and then taste like lobster when we get there.

There are no plans for upgraded space shuttles, or upsized space shuttles. There are also no mission requirements dictating an upsized space shuttle with larger payload bay. Additionally, the payload bay was originally sized by USAF requirements, which they hardly even used. NASA would have gone with a smaller spacecraft. In fact, the Space Shuttle also has wings because of the USAF's 900mi cross range design requirement, which was never used for it's intended purpose (launch, deploy secret payload, land after one orbit). Most importantly, the Space Shuttle cannot leave Low Earth Orbit, and it was designed to build a Space Station which will be complete at Shuttle retirement. Future modules can be launched on EELVs if needed. Orion is being designed to support larger, non-module ORUs such as CMGs, so that's covered too. HTV can also carry external components. NASA needs to get out of LEO. The Shuttle has to go away for that to happen. All good things must come to an end.

Masten Aerospace had their second flight in the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge today. This is an exciting time for space w/ all that is going on in both the public and private aerospace sectors. Great video of the flight: http://nasawatch.com/archives/2009/10/video-mastens-f.html

Why didn't NASA simply dust off the Saturn V blueprints? Shouldn't be that much of a challenge to make some Saturn stages recoverable, should it? Developing a "Saturn VI" would have been a true testimony to a monumental rocket.

"We know that shuttles work, work well, and are effective.. If they need to be replaced, why not just build new ones?...Sigh, It never ceases to amaze me that NASA is so full of fools."

The shuttles are designed for low earth orbit missions only. They can't go to the moon, and certainly can't go to Mars. What never ceases to amaze me are the fools who actually think they know more about the science and technology of space exploration than NASA.

----do you want that NASA and your country save over $35 billion?--if the answer is "yes", read and talk about this new article:--"Why the Ares 1-X test ISN'T a true success"--http://www.ghostnasa.com/posts2/057afailedtest.html----

In regards to NASA spinoffs, the PCs people are using to write these comments, would most likely be in their infancy right now, if invented at all. Without NASA projects, IBM might not have had the money to develop PCs.

Anonymous said >>If you think about it, the SRB has never failed. Both Shuttle tragedies were directly due to the extremely frail orbiter and its location on the vehicle. During the Challenger flight the SRBâ€™s still flew even after the explosion of the External Tank, the SRBâ€™s were trying to get back on course until range sent the self-destruct command, which work perfectly even after a jolt (vibration) like the vehicle exploding.<<

Challenger was lost because an SRB case burned through and ruptured the aft attach ring. The SRBs were completely unguided after the explosion. No study exists to show that it is economically feasible to recover the SRBs.

And as far as STS-1 goes... No there was no test launch of the shuttle. But do you remember that there actually was a "Test Landing"? NASA built an entire shuttle (The Enterprise) that would never lift-off, only land. It was deployed from the top of an airplane and glided down to land. So, an ARES test flight is not far from business as usual. Run a test, study the data, improve the experience/safety for the astronauts.

Annon yes thats correct on the shuttle. Nasa has always tested and learned, and used the data to perfect the final design before making it. Safety is paramount the vehicles must be as safe as humanly possible.(but there's always danger it space flight ).I remember that shuttle test from the top of a 747 airliner,crippen and young flew it i think .

The majority of the people in our country wants to see NASA succeed in every project that is designed to learn more about what the future plans need to be. The majority of the peopple in our nation knows that NASA has made great project with this project and also that in science (as in other things related to discovery) there is a lesson in the progress of the process and while in other fields such as 'a brain tumor operation' errors are called mistakes...in discovery of the future in Space an error is called 'a lesson.'Our nation needs to be in Space in order for its people to be safe on the planet Earth.

It's a fool's errand trying to convince someone whose Job Depends on Not Being Convinced. It's not news that the Constellation Program Manager sees a "perfect 10" 1-X launch/recovery and fails to see any merits of the Augustine Commission's Report, but ignoring the facts does not change the facts.

"Does anyone care anymore that we are in a ecomonic crisis, having a record number of people loosing their homes, going hungry that we need to spend 445 MILLION to test a rocket. 445 MILLION dollars devided by the total number of Americans, humm! do you think that might help those that really need?"

Yes, we care. We also care about whether the United States is a technological leader. We care that the country's kids stay interested in math and science. We care that the United States can sustain itself a decade or two (or a century) from now. We care about he future. Space exploration is a big piece of that future; it IS a need.

To answer your question, though... That 445 million dollars that you're so worried about? 'Tis but a drop in the a bucket... A practical insignificance compared to the massive amount of money the federal government spends - even compared to trying to "help people".

You could dismantle NASA entirely, and give every annual NASA dollar to "all those people who need help", and it probably wouldn't even pay for a single doctor's office visit for any of them. But, you'd already know that if you actually took 10 minutes and did the research yourself instead of bitching and whining. Get a clue.

It's comments like yours that confirm that we should be allocating even MORE money to NASA.

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